Jan Kemp, who exposed academic abuse for athletes, dies

Jan Kemp, who exposed fraud in athletes' grades at the University of Georgia back in the '80's, has passed away at the age of 59 due to complications of Alzheimer's. After being dismissed for complaining that the school allowed nine football players to remain eligible for he 1982 Sugar Bowl game by "passing" a remedial English course which they'd failed, Kemp filed a lawsuit and ultimately won. She was reinstated and awarded over a million dollars (initially 2.5 million that was reduced). A report confirmed a pattern of academic abuse for student athletes.

Dr. Kemp stated a month after the trial that “All over the country, athletes are used to produce revenue. I’ve seen what happens when the lights dim and the crowd fades. They’re left with nothing. I want that stopped.”

Related:

Heroism of Jan Kemp changed face of college football
via espn.go.com

Before she shed light in the early 1980s on Georgia's preferential treatment for academically unprepared athletes (including grade changes in remedial courses), there was no such thing as national academic standards for freshman eligibility. There were no academic reporting forms documenting what kind of students schools were bringing in to play sports, or how many graduated, or how many maintained satisfactory progress toward a degree. There were no major financial commitments to helping jocks succeed in the classroom -- no state-of-the-art academic centers, and very few fully funded academic support staffs.

If schools didn't care whether their athletes got an education, nobody was there to call them on it. Until Kemp did.

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